Column by Hakim Ouansafi: The greatness of our state was ultimately showcased to the world through the courageous act of our lawmakers by passing Islam Day to recognize the contributions of Islam and Muslims. Indeed, there has been no better place to be during the last 10 difficult years than in Hawaii…. (Nobody in America has shown more submission to Islam than Manoa liberals.)

For Muslims, grief and sorrow were compounded by incredulity that the murder of their loved ones could in any way be justified. American Muslims feel twice victimized: first by evil terrorists calling themselves Muslims, then by some fellow Americans who took advantage of this heinous act to openly showcase their bigotry, intolerance and Islamophobia. (That’s funny, I was thinking that Americans were the victims, first by terrorists, then by their apologists.)

…we have proven without any doubt that Islam is not guilty of such acts, but yet the bigoted agendas remain in full force….

(Ouansafi says “bigot” five times. This is designed to evoke a Pavlovian response in liberals for whom the desire for absolution from “bigotry” supersedes even the instinct for self-preservation.)

"I think we're recognizing commonalities between the hatred, the racism, the fear that encompassed large parts of the U.S. during the second World War, and ended up in mass deprivations to Japanese Americans," said civil rights attorney Ellen Godbey Carson, "and we're compared that to what's happened at 9/11, and what's happened to Muslim Americans since that attack."

While there are no mass internment camps this time, there is still discrimination, and some signs of it are subtle. (You are guilty, even without committing the crime. Bow down to the Goddess of Political Correctness and she may grant you absolution.)

"Going to the other side of the street," Carson said as an example. "Pulling one's child away. Just refusing to sit at the same place, or the type of glances that occur."

(Hawaii’s moron lawyers once elected Carson president of the Bar Association

Ten years after the Sept. 11 attacks, we have had much time to reflect on the gulf of misunderstanding, of misperception, and the divisions in the world that can lead to hatred, cruelty and violence.

We reflect more deeply than ever about living in Hawaii, where we embrace diversity and are reminded about the meaning of aloha.

The best way we can remember the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, and those who are victimized by that hatred and cruelty today, is to refocus our attention on what the aloha spirit is all about — our sense of our brotherhood and sisterhood in Hawaii — and do whatever we can to live that message and carry it to all the world.

The search for the right course correction has been costly in lives and national treasure, and we still don't have the right balance. The principal error of the past decade was the conviction that countering terrorism demanded a largely military response. (Argument against a straw-man.)

That was (what we want you to believe was) the mistake of the Bush administration, which first ineffectually pursued al-Qaida in Afghanistan and then invaded Iraq to compel a regime change that is still struggling to take root. It amounts to adventurism in a region where political and cultural complexities are impossible to untangle. (Actually it amounts to an attempt to introduce a new direction into an Islamic world where national socialism and Islamism are the only existing political options.)

The Obama administration has placed its bets instead on partnering with Afghan's central government and escalating the war against the Taliban there. (Did they just say “escalating the war”. The SA editor’s inability to reflect on their own contradictions is utterly mind-blowing.) History will prove whether that surge can ultimately result in greater regional stability, or whether insurgents in neighboring Pakistan will undo all of those efforts. (In other words, will the war in Afghanistan introduce a new direction into an Islamic world where national socialism and Islamism are the only existing political options. That sounds familiar.)

What we do know is that thousands of people, Afghan and American, have given their lives to this murky mission…. (Made murkier by SA’s editorialists.)

In the days and weeks leading up today's somber memorial, many Americans have wondered what life might have been like had 9/11 never happened.

That can be a fascinating discussion, but it's academic. (However so many liberals want to stick their heads in the sand that we are compelled to address them.)

What matters is where we all go from here, because clearly this is a journey that stretches ahead far longer than a single decade.

The Hilo charter school and its administrative assistant, William Eric Boyd, filed a lawsuit in Circuit Court in Hilo against the commission and its executive director, Les Kondo, demanding that it drop its investigation of Boyd. They claim that because he works for a charter school, Boyd is not a state employee and therefore not subject to the state Ethics Code.

"That's the 400-pound gorilla in this whole litigation, whether under the state Ethics Code he is a state employee," attorney Ted Hong, who is representing the school and Boyd, said Thursday. "If the court rules that they're not state employees, that's really going to cement the autonomy of charter schools to chart their own destiny. This case to me has a huge implication."

But the plaintiffs lost the first round in court Wednesday, when Circuit Judge Glen Hara refused to issue a temporary restraining order or preliminary injunction to stop the ethics investigation. He noted that charter schools are prohibited from suing state agencies, and said it didn't appear the lawsuit was likely to prevail on the merits.

Question: When does it make sense for a company to fund its own medical benefits for employees?

Answer: There are four primary reasons to consider self-funding medical benefits. They include a potential for cost savings and cost mitigation; increased control by financial and human resource professionals; plan design flexibility; and exemption from burdensome state and federal regulations.

… if federal health care reform is not defunded or deemed unconstitutional, it will not only add an additional layer of cost, but will also cause well-performing employers to subsidize high-risk employers or pools, particularly as of January 2014….

Self-insured plans are excluded from many burdensome regulations under federal and state laws. ... These conditions alone make self-insurance a viable option for employers….

More visitors are vacationing in Hawaii despite higher security and the 9/11 anniversary

Hawaii tourism took a nosedive following the 9/11 terrorist attacks; however, hotel rooms across the state are nearly full for the 10-year anniversary of that tragic event.

Tourists from around the world are coming in droves to Hawaii in September. Overall, visitor arrivals for the first part of September are up and are expected to stay that way despite an earlier U.S. State Department warning about travel on the 10th anniversary of the attacks and a more recent report that al-Qaida could be planning, near the date, to set off a car bomb in New York City or Washington, D.C.

"We haven't had any requests not to fly that day. In fact, we are seeing the best September that we've seen in three years," said Jack Richards, president and chief executive of Pleasant Holidays LLC, Hawaii's largest travel wholesaler.

On a quiet stretch of South Makena Road, a stone's throw from the ocean, two nearly identical, undeveloped properties sit side by side. Both are exactly 2.8 acres. Both are covered in kiawe trees and other scrub. Both are worth millions.

Yet while one landowner paid $20,000 in property taxes last year, the other paid just $150.

What's the difference? The second lot includes a small round pen for horseback riding. That was enough to qualify the parcel for the county's agricultural assessment - an adjustment in the county's estimate of what the land is worth for tax purposes. In this case, it reduced the second lot's taxable value from $5.3 million to just $100.